Just what is wrong with my hen???? Can anyone help?

[Donna-NC]

My grandmother kept hens, I grew up with them so have many years of experience. This one has me stumped:
We have a 4 year old Blue Orpington hen, flock leader. First - she still eats, drinks and lays so she's not on death's door. My grandmother would say dispatch her but since she does not appear to be in pain or uncomfortable physically I'm not inclined to do it just yet.

Her symptoms which manifested about 3 months ago are:

1. Weight loss. She's not a cadaver by any means but she's lost body mass to the point of being very lean.
2. Mobility issues. She stumbles around. She cannot scratch like the other hens. She's unbalanced and flaps/extends her wings to balance and then takes a few steps and sits down and pokes around in the dirt with her beak to find tidbits. She DOES NOT have the penguin type of walk but she is a touch more upright than the other birds are. Her tail is down as she walks along.
3. Her eyes are bright and not runny in any way.
4. Her nasal passages are dry and she has no mucus flowing.
5. Her breathing is fine, no coughing, sneezing or wheezing.
6. On days she does not lay she's better, on days when she does she's not so good, still not 100% but more mobile.
7. When challenged by one of the other hens she still keeps them inline - a few good pecks on the offender's head and they back off. So no major fights, they're sort of "testing the waters".
8. She's still laying every other day or so, the eggs are rather elongated and very light in color. The shells are only marginally thinner than the others.

I've kept her in a confinement coop at night since she can manage to get up into and out of it easier than the main coop it has it's own run and the entire setup is inside my larger main run so she has lots of contact with the other birds. She has her own food and water supply and I let her out into the main run during the day and put her back into it for the additional meals I'm preparing and fixing for her which is:

• Scrambled egg, greens, some fruit (grapes or berries), ground up oatmeal and ground up eggshells.

I feed this to her 2x's a day - first in the morning and about an hour or so before dark so she goes in with a full crop. She manages to eat the feed and get bugs throughout the day on her own.

We suspect one of two things:

• Stroke. This is our top suspect. Her balance issues, and when she stands she seems to be determining what she needs to do next. She has a 'Frankenstien' stumbling walk. She oversteps where her food is and winds up directly over it most of the time so her depth perception doesn't seem to be right
• Cancer of some sort. This is not our top suspect but it's considered. She's reached a plateau and her weight is stable and she's been like this for longer than cancer would probably allow her to live. Also she's still eating/drinking/laying, and cancer usually stops one or the other of that during it's course..

I've looked through every book and website and what I'm finding has many more symptoms than she has so they don't fit the bill.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC. Can you take a video, upload it to youtube or vimeo then copy & paste the link here?

 

[Donna-NC]

Welcome to BYC. Can you take a video, upload it to youtube or vimeo then copy & paste the link here?

I'll try to get one up today between work calls!

 

[Donna-NC]

I'll try to get one up today between work calls!

Okay, I've got a video. I'm no Francis Ford Coppola so don't expect greatness. It's up in the triple digits outside and she's not having a stellar day.

She's the white one obviously.

Update: She actually laid after I posted this video and again recovered and moved around much better for the rest of the day